Realism in games

Realism in games

Drake Johnson, staff writer

What is immersion? You have probably heard the word before but couldn’t or simply just didn’t understand what it meant.

Immersion is all about drawing players into the games world, whether that be by adding small little details that have nothing to do with the games progression or story, giving characters a well thought out personality and psyche before creating the story line, Giving characters well thought out backstories that the player can relate to and empathize with, and best of all having good graphics. Games may capture a player’s imagination and attention in many ways but today we are going to be focusing on the ones known for their hardcore realistic traits.

This first one may not be so hardcore, but if you read my review on Red Dead Redemption 2 then you may remember how realistic everything was made in it. One of the biggest and smallest things I noticed can be found if you spot a person eating. Now usually in most games they would loop an animation cause you to think that person is eating right?

Well my friend, Red Dead Redemption is not like most games. If you spot a person eating first the meal can change from things like steak and gravy to eggs and hash browns. Second of all you can watch that person eat that meal in real time! Taking a bite one by one as those pieces disappear off their plate whilst even making comments about the part they are eating! Lets just say that if Rockstar went as far as to fully animate and add voice lines for something most people would never notice, then what else is out there and what have we missed?

Next is an old but gold game known as Arma 3. Known for its notoriously bad optimisation and its ability to give you access to 100+ controls. Arma 3 is the mere definition of a military simulator. With snipers that can hit people up to 1000 meters away and the game’s super realistic helicopter and plane controls, if you turn them on anyway, this game is a challenge for new players especially because the game has no problem matching a team of level 10-20s vs a bunch of level 50-100s. Not only that but the game is one of the most modded games out there meaning you can make your experience even better.

And lastly we have Escape from Tarkov, this game has always entertained me especially with its high risk-high reward gameplay. The game’s sheer amount of items is enough to scare any new player. The game has amazing graphics along with some of its in-game mechanics. Such as its healing, when taking damage you can break bones, get light or heavy bleeding, get pain causing you to flinch constantly, or even receive trauma causing your vision to blur.

Along with this there are Armor penetration rates and effects on bullets with their being up to 10 types of ammo for one gun. There are also Tons of attachments and mods allowing you to make your dream gun that will rip anyone disturbing you to shreds or you can make a cursed UMP that has 5 flashlights attached to it basically allowing you to carry around the sun.

Tarkov is by definition a stat based game creating a huge hierarchy of players creating a more realistic feeling when fighting someone with better gear than you. Be on the lookout for an upcoming full Escape from Tarkov review and lastly one of the best words  I can use to sum up this game is, prepare.